The Story of Music

Reviews

“What really makes the book sing is the author’s argumentative style, giving it narrative momentum from paragraph to paragraph. This really is the ‘story’ of music, not just a chronological laundry list of important people and events.”

“A lively zip through some forty-five millennia, jumping back and forth between classical, folk, and pop.”

“Now comes Howard Goodall and everyone’s prayers are answered. He starts right at the beginning, with 25,000-year-old bone flutes. A racily written, learned, and often shrewdly insightful book.”

“An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages that manages neither to sacrifice precise detail nor pugnacious opinion. This sweep is the book’s key strength, even if it means that some composers receive relatively short shrift. But it is in keeping with the title: this is about music, not a roll call of the greats, and Goodall is unfailingly acute on how technology drives musical innovation…The Story of Music is a clever, engaging read.”

“Most of us take music for granted, and yet, as explained in this insightful exploration on the origins of music, someone had to come up with harmony and rhythm; someone had to create musical notation…A masterful and illuminating whirlwind tour through thousands of years of musical history.”

“A celebrated British composer and broadcaster surveys the evolution and cultural significance of music, from prehistoric caves to Coldplay…He recognizes that the subject requires much inference until the ages of notation, print, and recording, but he plunges bravely into the lake of darkness and manages some illumination…Goodall also explores the invention and modification of significant instruments—the violin, organ, piano…[While] the big names retain their size in his account. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and myriads of others…the author is also alert to the significance of popular music and has some passages about Broadway and the movies, blues, rock ’n’ roll (whose origin he traces to Benny Goodman!), jazz, and hip-hop. Goodall also discusses the effects of political systems on music and musicians—from pre-revolutionary France to Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union and others. The author continually reminds us of technological advances—print, recordings, radio, films—that enabled music to spread as never before…Cultural history with some attitude and considerable rhythm and melody.”

“British composer Goodall…focus[es] on the Western classical tradition and popular music…The musical analysis…[is] well informed…For music listeners interested in Western classical and popular music.”

“It’s a big story that lives up to its subtitle as it spans centuries…Narrator Simon Vance presents the facts and occasional opinions with all the author’s diligence. Like a lecture from a favorite professor, though, the book always entertains and engages…Goodall’s writing is thoughtful, considering such topics as the European influence on the blues and the stresses on composers who worked under Nazi or Soviet regimes. There’s much for the music scholar and casual listeners.”

Expand reviews